danivon

Comment Threads

• Charlie Stross commented on Eating the seed corn
  This is from looking at records based on music sales rather than books but I imagine it's broadly similar. No it's not! The breakdown in publishing is: 30-70% to the distribution channel (wholesalers/retailers or Amazon.com/Apple), the rest going through the publisher. But the author trousers between 7% and 15% of net receipts, so when the dust settles it should work out at a roughly even split of the profits between the publisher and the author. The author's agent is paid a 15% commission by the author, which gives them an incentive to shake down the publisher as hard as they...
• Charlie Stross commented on Eating the seed corn
  So the system was rigged to favor party not-A No. The system was rigged to favour coalitions. That's not the same at all. In a system with three major and two or three minor parties, this should in theory result in consensus-based government. (Major: Labour, Lib-Dem, SNP. Minor: Conservative, Green, Socialist. Yes, we have three and a half socialist parties, the greens, and a couple of die-hard conservatives. Hell, we have more pandas than Conservative MPs.) Anyway: if any one party in the Scottish system gains an absolute majority (as happened for Labour, early on, and now the SNP) it...
• Moderator Alan commented on Eating the seed corn
  Hey, I bought books from G&P. I miss them....
• https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawlZGPNBIYo9f9X1PIAfjT8B1UZLap2EVr0 commented on Eating the seed corn
  at our local library the people are waiting out the front every day for it to open........one of the only places to be warm, safe,comfortable and sociable in these times, without being obliged to spend money...increasingly hostile outdoor pulic spaces ...uncomfortable seating and blurring of boundaries with commercial space the main culprits.......
• bjacques commented on Eating the seed corn
  National Lampoon were way ahead of you in the 1970s. There's a fast food chain called Arby's, so it was Arby's Macht Fries. Not to mention Jackboot in the Box. The main library in Amsterdam has been hugely busy the times I've been there, but it's national capital, a university town and the library's a quick bike ride from anywhere. As far as I can tell, the smaller district libraries are still open and being used too....